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Utilisation of the balanced capital structure creates the base for the stable development of any company. Having optimal capital structure is a key strategic task for financial management. Currently, there is a myriad of theories describing the current state and recommending the optimal state of enterprises’ capital structure. Fundamental ones are the Modigliani-Miller theorem (Modigliani & Miller, 1958, 1963), the trade-off theory (Kraus & Litzenberger, 1973), the pecking order theory of capital structure (Fisher & Donaldson, 1962), and dynamic trade-off models (Brealey & Myers, 2014). Verifying the statement: “The behaviour of Czech companies confirms the preference for debt financing over equity. This behaviour is the same across sectors.” is the first goal of this contribution. Based on the result, we can reveal fundamental capital structure theory for Czech companies and we can set the recommendations valid for the Czech environment in general. This will help financial managers to lead their enterprises into balanced capital structures.

Cash is one of the key items in the balance sheet, since it is necessary for every transaction. Cash holdings provide the company with flexibility and the ability to meet its own needs, regardless of existing business conditions. It can be significant in terms of the company’s internal financing, thus it is crucial to maintain an optimal level of cash, given that external financing also entails certain costs. An optimal level of cash holdings represents available money to investors and should increase general business efficiency. Achieving an optimal level of cash holdings provides the company with autonomy to explore new opportunities as well as take risks. An insufficient level of cash creates the need for financing from external sources, which is reflected in reduced investments and decreased sale of available assets and securities. However, a large amount of cash enables the company to respond to market trends and take advantage of investment opportunities so as to secure the financial power of the company.

Importantly, accounting is the mirror of all business activities undertaken by enterprises. Financial statements constitute an important source for decision-making by a wide range of internal and external users. The basic concept of accounting reports, which should provide reliable information for users, is the provision of a true and fair view of the situation and structure of assets, financing sources thereof, the structure of the equity capital and the enterprise’s financial state. Needless to say, accounting requires highly qualified expertise from its processors. The relevant accounting frameworks of the Czech accounting standards, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) and International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS/IFRS) allow for a selection of accounting methods, assessments and estimates of certain accounting phenomena and processes. This approach is further supported by frequent changes of and amendments to accounting standards.

Managers need to know the situation of companies they manage and what their prospects are in the market. That is why the financial analysis has become a necessary part of the managerial decision-making of any company that intends to succeed in today’s competitive environment. It represents an assessment of the past, the present and the future of the company’s financial health. One of the tools of financial analysis is the bankruptcy prediction model. The great advantage of such models is that their primary source of input data is based on internal information from the company, internal accounting statements, included in the final accounts, that is, their balance, profit and loss statement, cash flow. Accounting units are obliged to prepare their final accounts according to legal requirements. For example, in the Czech Republic, under Act No. 563/1991 Coll., on Accounting, there is an exemption for micro and small accounting units that do not need to prepare cash flow statement if their turnover is up to CZK 200 mill. and their assets are not greater than CZK 100 mill.

Every company needs financial resources for its business activities before its establishment and during its existence. For accounting purposes, these funds are arranged in the balance sheet, in which they form a part called the capital or financial structure, which, including both longterm and short-term sources of funding, is the subject of this research. In addition to the time structure, the financial structure is further divided into equity and debt sources of financing. The question that economists have been trying to answer for more than half a century is “what the right ratio of equity and debt sources of funding is?” We could find studies of various years, such as Modigliani and Miller (1963), Bradley et al. (1984), Bokpin (2009), Orlova et al. (2020), Růčková and Stavárek (2020) or Jin (2021). Unfortunately, even in such a long time, no answer has been found, because the balance of funding sources is influenced by a number of factors and therefore, countless studies dealing with this issue are still being published. In view of this fact, there is no general theory of capital structure, as stated by Myers (2001).

Intellectual capital has been a widely discussed topic in the last few decades (Palaščáková et al., 2019). The early research was solely focused on human capital as a strategic resource of a company (Hermanson, 1964). Follow up studies included a myriad of different elements of intellectual capital, i.e. structural and relational capital (Edvinsson, 1997; Pulić, 1998; Sveiby, 1997). Even though these authors have presented the structure of the intellectual capital, the consensus on the classification still has not been clearly set. Some authors propose separating Innovation capital from structural capital in the IT industries (Wang & Chang, 2005). Therefore, this study has followed the overview and classification of intellectual capital into four categories: human capital, relational capital, structural capital and innovation capital.

The paper studies a new point of view and the approach to profit as an inherent part of business finance as well as a symbol of every healthy economy. The fundamental function of the profit is a stimulus; it means initial motivator of the business activity. The profit provides core resources for survival at the business start and after the stabilization, it is the synonym for progress. The aim of this paper is to detect significant change-points in times series of EBITDA during the analysed period in every country of the Visegrad Group to recognize the progress years in the monotonic development. We use a method of homogeneity test of time series that delivers significant robust results. We observe the variable EBITDA to eliminate different tax, interest and depreciation policies of these emerging countries. The original research of this article is based on empirical results of business profits of the sample of 3,853 enterprises covered by the broad theoretical review. Firstly, we identify missing values; and detect the outliers by Z-score and Grubbs test. EBITDA of 1,058 Slovak enterprises, 688 Czech enterprises, 1,376 Polish enterprises and 731 Hungarian enterprises is analysed during the period from 2010 to 2018. We eliminate the inconsistent observations and construct average values of EBITDA. Secondly, we prove normality by Jarque-Bera test, and support it by Shapiro-Wilk test, Anderson-Darling test, Lilliefors test to deliver reliable results. Thirdly, we find an independency of distribution that confirm randomness by the Box-Pierce test. And finally, we identify the years that affect heterogeneity of EBITDA in the countries of the Visegrad Four. We uncover some really surprising results. For all countries in the Visegrad Four, the year 2013 is detected as a change-point at a significance level of 0.05. This significant year shifts EBITDA between two homogeneous series with corresponding central lines and recognizes the similar annual development within the groups. In addition, we discuss the results to the areas and factors affecting the business risk. The adjustable area represented by the business dynamism has no significant impact on the development of EBITDA. The uncontrollable macroeconomic factors such as a GDP, unemployment rate, inflation rate, average monthly gross wage, and Ease of doing business index demonstrate the same development of Slovak, Czech, Polish and Hungarian enterprises. We connect our gained results to the undisputed influence of these factors and its derived components on monotonic development of EBITDA. Despite the fact, that the countries are not economically interconnected as they used to be in the past, in has to be underlined that their mutual relations are still very narrow and close and that might be the reason, why identical results are achieved in the countries with divergent development.

In a global environment, where a major part of a business operates in an international environment, financial indicators seem insufficient, especially because they are historical indicators; they are unstable and do not reflect future developments. The instability in the environment of competition urges businesses to introduce a strategy focusing on the critical areas and factors that have impact on the business survival in the long term (He & Lu, 2018; Peršić, Janković, & Krivačić, 2017). Measuring the performance of companies must be based not only on the financial indicators but increasingly also on the non-financial ones. The financial indicators are best suited for use in strategic management, where they indicate whether the implemented stratégy helps to improve. The non-financial indicators determine the short-term direction of the organization and their identification is usually quite complex and sometimes subjective. The non-financial indicators are usually determined based on the experience and knowledge of the managers of the company (Režňáková, Karas, & Strnadová, 2017).

In the context of imperfect markets, corporate liquidity represents an important asset to finance investments without raising costly external resources, which imply transaction and information costs. Moreover, the cash holdings offer a buffer against financial distress costs when the firm faces frictions in generating operating cash flows, both in volume and timely. On the other hand, the increase in cash holdings implies several costs: a liquidity premium, tax disadvantages, and agency costs for shareholders (Chang, Benson, & Faff, 2017). The trade-off theory streamlined in the literature governs the firms which need to balance costs and benefits of holding cash to determine the optimal level. While a lot of studies have been done in the direction of identifying the determinants of corporate cash holdings, going further, it is important to understand the relationship between non-earning assets (cash holdings) and firm value, in order to evaluate the corporate financial policies and to attain the right equilibrium between liquidity and profitability.

The traditional interpretation of corporate finance is characterized by ownership. Although, their rights are widely distributed among individual stockholders, but can be managed by few managers. Hence, conflict of interest is arisen among managers and shareholders and this results in an agency problem (Fama, 1980; Fama & Jensen, 1983). A number of empirical studies also confirmed the ownership concentration of firms, especially those dominated by few large owners or block-holders (La Porta et al., 1999). The concentrated structure of ownership also contributes towards agency conflict between block-holders and minority shareholders. From another perspective, the block-holders can benefit minority shareholders by their role in monitoring managers and also can be hazardous if they strive to achieve their own private goals (Shleifer & Vishny, 1997).